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Clinton’s Dishonest Allegations of “Isolationism”

Whenever the Clinton administration’s stewardship of foreign
affairs is attacked, administration officials drag the isolationist
straw man out of storage and give him a good public thrashing. The
latest example of that tactic was President Clinton’s speech in San
Francisco. Although conceding that, for the first time since the
rise of fascism, “there is no overriding threat to our survival or
freedom,” the president emphasized that the United States must stay
engaged in the world and not “batten down the hatches.”

Clinton’s assertion that Americans confront a stark
choice between engagement and isolationism typifies the
administration’s simplistic portrayal of the post-Cold War foreign
policy debate. Last summer Secretary of Defense William Cohen
stated that Americans should not act “as if we could zip ourselves
up into a continental cocoon and watch events unfold on CNN.”
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright routinely derides her critics
as isolationists.

Such caricatures retard a debate on the real
foreign policy options at the dawn of the 21st century. No one of
any prominence is suggesting that the United States cut itself off
from the world and create a Fortress America or a hermit republic.
There are increasing calls, however, for Washington to focus its
foreign policy resources, energy and attention on those relatively
few developments in the international system that can have a direct
and substantial impact on America’s own security and well-being.
Critics worry that the Clinton administration is unwilling or
unable to set priorities and distinguish between essential and
nonessential matters.

Clinton’s San Francisco speech did little to allay
that apprehension. The president outlined five “great challenges”
requiring U.S. leadership: spreading peace; helping Russia and
China achieve greater prosperity and political pluralism; combating
terrorism, drug trafficking, environmental degradation and
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; expanding
international trade; and promoting democracy around the world.

Not only is that a breathtakingly broad agenda, it
implies U.S. omnipotence. An intelligent and sustainable foreign
policy must consist of something more than a wish list of desirable
objectives. There are distinct limits to the ability of any nation
— even one as powerful as the United States — to shape the global
political, economic and strategic environment. For example, the
political futures of Russia and China will be determined largely by
domestic developments in those two countries. Likewise, democracy
is not a product that can be exported to the developing world by
U.S. political or economic exertions, however well intended.

Clinton’s assertion that Americans confront a stark
choice between engagement and isolationism typifies the
administration’s simplistic portrayal of the post-Cold War foreign
policy debate.

Indeed, such objectives as the promotion of
democracy and “spreading peace” are so inherently amorphous that
they beg the real questions. Spread peace how? where? and at what
level of cost or risk to the American people? To take just one
example, is it really wise for the United States to spend billions
of taxpayer dollars, risk the lives of American military personnel,
invite terrorist retaliation against U.S. cities and put its
credibility on the line by intervening in not one but two civil
wars in the Balkans?

Perhaps there is a compelling rationale for those
missions, but if so, the administration ought to rebut the
substantive objections rather than dismiss opponents as
knuckle-dragging isolationists. It also must provide a coherent
strategic analysis instead of resorting to clichés about
geopolitical dominoes toppling throughout the Balkans and
triggering another world war in the absence of U.S. preventive
action.

The president’s treatment of the Balkans issue in
his San Francisco speech illustrates the administration’s overall
tendency to use hyperbole and distortions when portraying America’s
post-Cold War foreign policy options. All too often, the argument
is that if Washington does not exercise leadership to ensure peace
and justice in virtually every region, chaos will ensue and
eventually require U.S. intervention at greater cost and under less
favorable conditions.

That thesis ignores the possibility of other
strategies and outcomes. A more selective global political and
military role for the United States would exert inexorable pressure
on other significant regional actors to do more, out of
self-interest, to stabilize the security environment in their
respective regions. It is both puzzling and troubling that, more
than a half century after the end of World War II, Japan and its
neighbors in East Asia are incapable of containing a smallish rogue
state like North Korea and must instead rely on the United States.
Similarly, Americans have a right to ask why the European Union,
with nearly 400 million people, a collective gross domestic product
of some $8 trillion and more than 1 million active-duty military
personnel, cannot deal with instability in the Balkans or problems
of similarly modest magnitude.

Is it really in America’s best interest to continue
tolerating — and in some cases encouraging — such pervasive
dependency? Or would it be better for the United States to insist
that major democratic powers take primary responsibility for their
own defense and the stability of their neighborhoods? It can at
least be argued that fostering multiple centers of power in the
world would lead to the creation of security buffers that would
reduce America’s risk exposure and provide other important indirect
benefits to the United States.

Whatever the merits of that theory, it is the kind
of issue that should be at the center of a meaningful discussion
about America’s role in the 21st century. The president’s use of
the isolationist straw man may postpone the day when his
administration must conduct an honest foreign policy debate, but it
does a disservice to his country.